


The Dragons are coming

by englishrose2011



Series: The Dragons are coming [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Alternative Universe Dragons are known, F/M, M/M, Non-graphic rape/non con not seen but spoken of, Not Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Compliant, Strike Team Delta, attempted suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-05-03 03:13:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5274434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/englishrose2011/pseuds/englishrose2011
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In an alternative Universe, the Avengers have some dragon shapeshifter members in a world where the supernatural in known.</p>
<p>The Avengers have come together, but they need to choose a handler before the   WSC impose one on them. </p>
<p>For Nat and Clint there is only one choice, but at the moment he is sitting in the Fridge, and Fury is standing in their way. </p>
<p>This is a standalone story, but might be developed into a series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dragons are coming

**Author's Note:**

  * For [To Antoinette on your birthday.](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=To+Antoinette+on+your+birthday.).



> With thanks to my beta reader Antoinette, for all your help and support.  
> All mistakes are mine.

The Present 

The world had gone to hell in a hand basket, and the Avengers had found themselves at odds with SHIELD. Assistant Director Hill had approached them about taking on a handler, someone who could liaison with SHIELD; the candidates that she nominated were all shot down. 

Clint Barton sat at the back of the room, an arrow twirling between his fingers as he spun it. He listened closely to each of the names Hill gave them. All were well qualified Senior Agents with years of experience, a couple were names linked to young top guns who would either find glory or death at SHIELD. Fury would have a fit if anyone of those top guns were chosen to handle the Avengers.

Nat leaned into Clint and whispered one name, he nodded in agreement, and both knew that Fury would move heaven and earth to block them. Because the owner of that name was one of SHIELD’s elite class handlers, even though he was considered insane. But it didn’t stop Fury from springing him from the Fridge when he was needed to run missions for him.

Two years ago

Clint and Nat were sparring in the gym; they had come back from a mission five days ago and were on a time out, due to the fallout from the explosive nature of their relationship with their handler on their last mission. No one at the moment was willing to work with the two of them.

It was then they saw the man stood watching them, he was immaculately dressed in a black suit, he was older, his hair was thinning, and he looked like an accountant. 

Clint closed the distance between them, doing nothing to hide the sneer on his face. 

“Agents Barton, Romanov, I am Senior Agent Coulson, I will be your new handler.” That was as far as he got before Clint cut across him. 

“See Nat, we’re already being fucked over, they give us a pencil pusher,” that was as far as he got as he stabbed a finger into Coulson’s chest, only it never connected. 

The next thing Clint knew was that he was flat on his back and had a foot on his throat and he was looking up into a Glock. Nat, for once, had fallen into the same trap and started forward only to freeze as the pencil pusher seemed to magic a second gun out of mid-air and had it aimed straight at her face.

When Clint tried to move the man, Coulson just ground his foot down harder, until he stilled. His voice was cold and emotionless “Let’s start over again. My name is Senior Agent Coulson, you are my assets.” He took his foot off Clint’s throat, and holstered his gun, one to the side, one to the small of his back. “My office 14.30 hrs, don’t be late.” Then turning on his heels he left the gym.

As Clint climbed to his feet one of the older agents said from across the gym, “Good luck with him Delta.” 

“You know the guy,” Clint said as he rubbed his throat.” 

“Sure, that’s Coulson, the directors personal attack dog,” he paused “and one of the best handlers that SHIELD’S got.” 

From that rocky start they grew into the perfect team, and the reputation of Strike Team Delta grew. 

Unlike the other handlers Coulson didn’t try to force them to shift into their dragon forms, he allowed them the freedom to take whatever form they wanted when they wanted too. Which if it meant he sometimes walked into his office to find two large dragons the size of Shetland ponies sprawled there, one of the couch and the other under a hot lamp, then so be it. If another time it was two attractive young agents dressing in transformation bodysuits, then that was okay as well.

Then it happened fourteen months late THE MISSION, Clint always thought of it in capital letters because it was the game changer, Coulson had been sent out with a pack of junior agents on a milk run, he was working with another Senior Agent by the name of Burns, Kim Burns. How Hydra turned her SHIELD never knew only that Coulson had been caught with his juniors and what happened next was bad real bad.

Because Coulson was a level 8 agent, he had the Jonas implant, if they tried to remove it, it would kill him. If they tried to pump him full of drugs the chemical excreted from the implant would cause his brain to implode so they had gone old school with vengeance. During the two months they had been missing Coulson had been beaten, water boarded and raped to try and break him, the junior agents had been used as pawns in Hydra’s sick game. 

Burns at some point had almost given up on trying to get the information from him, and had revelled in what she could force the junior agents to do to him. Some refused and they died, the others had beaten, raped and abused him as a way of avoiding their own death at her hands. But ultimately they too had died. But Burns made a mistake and SHIELD had located him and Clint and Nat had led a twenty strong SHIELD assault team in. 

The HYDRA interrogators had died bloody, under the fury that only Dragons could unleash. Coulson had been taken back to base, while in medical he had been debriefed, two days later he had killed Burns while she had screamed at him that she had made a deal with Hill. The surveillance film showed Coulson had shot her in the stomach, and then as she had lay writhing on the ground hands pressed to her stomach, she had begged for her life. Coulson had spoken levelly, with no emotion as he had named each of the junior agents who had died, just as security forced the door he had shot her through the head, and turned the gun on himself, only their arrival had stopped him following her into death. 

What happened next was classified so high that neither Nat nor Clint could find out what had happened to their handler, when they had forced the matter, they had been send out on a long-term mission in Asia. 

Three months later on a mission that self-same mission they heard Coulson’s voice over their comm. There was a cold brittle edge to his voice they hadn’t heard before, but gradually Clint got him to talk again, each mission after that one he coaxed him a little more, his heart scoring the first time he had heard Coulson’s dry chuckle in his ear at something he had said.

Each mission would start the same way, Coulson would arrive with his escort, and he would be wearing the black suit, white dress shirt and black tie that were his own personal amour. He would place his briefcase on the table, and remove the files. The guard would then be sent out of the room, because they didn’t have the clearance to hear the briefing. 

Clint would watch the other agents enter the room, and read their faces. Some had been on missions with Coulson before and he could see the relief in their faces as they knew their chances of survival had just increased, and he also saw the fear, of those that only knew him by reputation and the bloody stories that circulated round SHIELD. 

Their latest mission had gone to hell, but Strike Team Delta had pulled SHIELD’s cookies out of the fire and made it work. When extraction had come, they had sent the other agents ahead; it was something they had done before to give Phil, somewhere along the line he had become Phil time to decompress from the mission. 

Strike Team Delta, settled down for the next extraction in two days’ time. Nat was cooking a meal, and somehow making something eatable from the dried food packs. The TV was ancient, black and white, with rabbit ears aerial, but that would have to do. By fiddling with it, slapping its sides Clint finally got a picture, it was too temperamental to try and change the channel. So they ended up introducing Phil to the wonders of terrible reality TV, and even worse science fiction films. The only place they could sit was a battered couch which sagged in the middle, Clint’s arm rested along the back of it, and he gave Phil a smile as the older man finally leaned his head back against it. Nat turned slightly so that her head was resting on Phil’s shoulder, and then reaching up slowly so that he could pull back she guided Coulson’s head down so that they could kiss, soft and gentle. 

Then Clint did the same, his lips brushing Phil’s forehead.

“I can’t I…..” Phil stared to say.

“Shsssh.” Clint said softly, “You’re with us now.” Nothing had happened between them, just those chased kisses, the two of them ready to give as much or as little as he needed. 

That night for the first time Phil slept deeply and without the nightmares, as Clint and Nat curled round him, their bodies warm against him, their hands the only one that he would let touch him. Phil felt safe and protected, his dragons would kill any that tried to hurt him

They started to visit him in the Fridge, bringing him things to make his bleak cell more of a home, seeing him dressed in the orange jumpsuit had angered them. Phi was a victim and he was being treated as a criminal, the next time they visited Nat brought with her a pile of casual clothes. The guards had tried to stop them, but when Clint had put them through to Fury they had backed down and it had been entered on Phil’s record. But Clint and Nat schemed to get him released. 

So Clint wasn’t happy when he learned that Fury had started using Coulson for other things rather than just the Strike Team Delta missions and one of them had been Stark. Phil had worked his own magic on Pepper Potts and the woman actually like him, and they had worked together for Stark’s good. Then had come New Mexico, by now the Fridge guards has been replaced by a small dedicated team of SHIELD agents known as the men in black, much to Clint’s delight. Jasper Sitwell have been lead agent of the team and against the odds he had become friends with Coulson, after his protectee, he preferred that word to prisoner had saved his life by taking out a Hydra assassin with a propelling pence through the eye and into the brain. It was after that that Phil had been armed for the first time, an armed prisoner was an oxymoron, but in the craziness that was SHIELD it worked. After all since Coulson has taken out an Hydra assassin with a pencil and anther two with a paperclip and ruler, denying him a gun seemed a bit redundant for a man who could make weapons form anything laying around. 

Then came the attack on the carrier and Phil Coulson, had gone after a demi god and died. His death had propelled the Avengers towards making them the unit they had become. But once Clint and Nat knew that Coulson had survived, they knew there was only one person that could handle their new team. Senior Agent Philip Judson Coulson was perfect for the Avengers, and they were going to get him

0-0-0-0-0-0

The Present 

Nat sat at the head of the table in Avenger Towers, formally known as Stark tower, and looked round the table at Tony, Steve, Bruce and Thor. “Our SHIELD handler is Phil Coulson.” 

“Agent.” Tony put in, “But he’s dead, he ……” Tony paused “that son of a bitch, Coulson is alive isn’t he.” 

Nat nodded “Fury has been lying to us to keep the WSC happy, you see Agent Coulson was never officially supposed to see the light of day, and him doing his Captain America impersonation with Loki, meant that they would know that he was being let out of the Fridge. So better they thought that he was now dead, one more secret they could bury in a grave.” 

“Why.” Tony asked, “Why wasn’t Coulson supposed to see the light of day.” 

It was Clint that answered, but first he looked to the ceiling. “Is this room on lock down.” 

“Jarvis lock down, surveillance counter measure active.” Tony ordered.

“Yes Sir, counter surveillance counter measures are in place” the AI reported. 

“This isn’t really our story to tell,” Nat began but you need to know. The next half hour was painful and for the first time Nat and Clint allowed their professional masks to slip just enough to let the others know what he truly meant to them. 

It was Jarvis that found the films; the AI had gotten that deep in the SHIELD mainframe that he had bonded with it. Which explained why SHIELD hadn’t been able to detect its presence in their system, Jarvis was part of it. 

The films were shown in silence from the shocked avengers, at the end of it. Stark got to his feet without a word collected five glasses and poured them all a full glass of whiskey. 

“The WSC put him in this Fridge place because of that.” He pointed at the screen, “the poor bastard…..” Tony trailed off, shaking his head in disgust. 

Bruce put down the broken pencil, which he had snapped as he watched the film, and took a couple of deep breaths, but the green still tinted his skin. He had known Coulson the least having little contract with the man. But even so he had senses that he was more than just a suit, there was person inside of it, a person that still cared. If he was still human after all that, then he was well worth saving. 

The formal request for Agent Philip Judson Coulson was made two hours later. 

0-0-0-0-0

Fury stalling them over Coulson, until they finally found out that Coulson was missing in action, a mission had gone FUBAR and Coulson had been brought in to keep the wheels on the wagon.

Under his leadership, SHIELD had managed to recover most of their agents or at least their bodies, the death toll had been high, but would have been higher without him. Phil had kept the window open for evacuation, past when other handlers would have cut their losses.

He had put down covering fire as they had boarded the plane, and then been hit and went down. The junior handler had lost his head and ordered the plane to take off, leaving Coulson and several wounded agents behind. 

0-0-0-0-0

Phil lay curled up on the floor of the cell, a threadbare blanket round him, shivering running a fever from his wound, the other agents with him had been executed not deemed worth enough to waste medical resources on. Only the fact their leader was out of the country had stopped them for torturing him, it appeared their leader was due to fly in and once he arrived it would start. 

He heard a noise above his head, near the small vent, it was a huffing sound, then the grate on it came off flying off and landed on the floor near him, a creature came flying out; a lizard only as it fell it opened its wings with a loud crack and glided down onto the floor. The lizard, no dragon gave a shake and settled its wings back against its body and looked round, and then padded towards him. 

It halted three feet from him, and then began to shift into a form that Phil recognized Clint Barton. 

“Easy boss where here to get you out. Are the other agents…...?”

Phil shook his head “Dead, they killed them…are you…..”  
Clint didn’t pull away when Coulson wrapped a bloody scraped hand round his wrist, “I am real boss.” He added with a quirk of the lips, knowing that Coulson needed this contact; he was living his worst nightmare again, so he covered Coulson’s hand with his and gave it a gentle squeeze of reassurance, anchoring the older man to the present.  
Just then there was a scraping noise and another dragon dropped from the grate, this one was all black with an hourglass red marking on its back, Nat. 

“You’re going to have to trust us on this Sir,” Clint said then added over the comm device “I’ve got him Iron Man, proceed in ten.” As he did that Nat increased in size and laid down carefully against Coulson. She lay so that she covered his lower body, in a cocoon of leather wings. Clint changed back to his dragon from; leaning down his gently nudged his handler face with his snout rubbing his muzzled against his jaw affectionately. Carefully Clint extended his wings to cover the older man’s shoulder head and chest, completing the cocoon of wings, tucking his own head down. 

The giant green Emperor dragon was huge, dragons were capable of changing size but Bruce was the largest of them all. He came circling down out of the sun over the Hydra base, his first blast of fire took the vehicles in the compound out, leaving only fireballs and twisted metal behind. A second blast of fire took out the buildings levelling them, leaving only carnage behind, as Iron Man flew high cover.

Director Fury watched from a distance, when finally there was no one left moving, he saw the Emperor dragon begin to tear the building apart with its claws, then a little later he saw Coulson walking out, Barton had his arm wrapped round the older man’s waist supporting him. Flanking him was Nat still in dragon form, as Iron Man landed, the Hulk followed him down, and the very earth shook as he landed. Moving forward Iron Man helped Coulson as Clint strapped the older man in a harness slung under the Hulk’s belly, once certain it was secure, the Hulk took off carrying its precious cargo with him. Stark following, increasing his speed to lead the way, they were soon joined by Nat and Clint. The two smaller dragons, moved up in formation round the Emperor, the SHIELD security team who had started forward when Coulson had appeared was blocked by Captain America, who had started them down, making it plain that they would have to go through him first. 

Fury ordered the security team to stand down, without turning he addressed the studious man stood just behind him. 

“You better be right about this Dr. Dawson, it better be worth the sacrifice.” 

“A bond of blood and fire is always the strongest Director. I would stake my life on it.” 

“You already have doctor, you already have.” 

The End


End file.
